Tony Evans Quotes

Success is not what you have done compared to what others have done. Success is what you have done compared to what you were supposed to do.

Don't magnify your problems, magnify your God...he's got you covered.

Men, God is not opposed to greatness. God is opposed to pride. Big difference. Unfortunately, it is a difference not widely understood or embraced.

You are not fighting for victory—you are fighting from victory. This battle has already been won!

One of the major problems leading to the breakdown of society is that we have far too many opinions dictating life choices and not enough truth mandating them.

Many in our society want the benefits of freedom without its responsibilities and boundaries. They want “God bless America,” but not one nation under God.

The single greatest reason why we are losing a generation is because the home is no longer the place of the transference of the faith. We live in a day of ‘outsourcing’…Today, we have a generation of people that outsource their kids.

Simply defined, prayer is earthly permission for heavenly interference.

Even when things seem to be going wrong, they just could be going right because when you're in God's will, the negatives are part of his positive program.

The tragedy today is that many Christians think they are fighting flesh and blood in their marital and parenting issues, rather than realizing that Satan has an agenda to destroy their home. Whoever controls the family controls the future.

Religion can be one of the greatest hindrances to faith because it creates dependency on a ritual rather than on the God of the universe who can do all things.

Our wives are like mirrors, reflecting back to us what kinds of husbands we are.

Obeying the will of God takes priority over satisfying cultural expectations.

If all you see is what you see, you will never see all that there is to be seen. Since

If you don’t know the truth, or if you don’t act on the truth, the shield of faith is impotent. In order to have faith, you have to know and respond to truth. And as we saw earlier, truth is fundamentally God’s viewpoint on a matter.

It has nothing to do with whether you like God’s rules. It’s not your kingdom. If you want to operate by your own rules, then you need to go out and create your own world. But as long as you are in God’s world, where God has set the rules, you must abide by His rules or you become a rebel against His kingdom government.

Jesus didn't wait until we got better to die for us. He died when we were in our most unlovely state. The person who doesn't deserve love actually needs love more, not less. If you know someone unworthy of love, that's great! You now have a chance to emulate Christ, because the essence of His love is unconditional.

If you align your thoughts and your desires underneath His comprehensive rule over every area of your life, you will walk in peace. He will calm your heart and your mind by giving you peace.

Tenacious prayer is a lifestyle that produces results.

A friend is someone who gets in your way when you are on your way down.

It’s interesting that, there really is no Proverbs 31 for men in the Bible. Men need the whole Bible, women need a chapter.

Putting on the shoes of peace can help you make good choices. God says when you allow His peace to rule your life, He will call the shots. When you're worrying about what you're supposed to do, He will calm your heart and your mind by giving you peace.

True biblical love is compassionately and righteously pursuing the well-being of another.

faith is acting as if God is telling the truth.

To fear God simply means to take God seriously, as opposed to taking God casually.

CHURCH is like a hospital. It’s where people who are sick, broken, bruised, beaten, and battered with life because of sin and unrighteousness come for help. It’s okay if you are here and don’t have all your life together. If you had all your life together, you wouldn’t need to be here. However, hospitals do not tolerate sick people hanging around who don’t want to get better. No doctor is going to keep fooling with a patient

Faith is acting as if God is telling the truth. It is acting as if something is true even when it doesn’t appear to be true in order that it might be shown to be true simply because God said it’s true.

When we allow our faith to be defined by our feelings, we will be confused. Faith must have an objective standard by which it is defined—truth. In fact, when faith operates by an objective standard of truth, it will eventually dictate our emotions rather than the reverse.

Our God is sovereign. That means there's no such thing as luck. Anything that happens to you, good or bad, must pass through His fingers first. There are no accidents with God. I like the story of the cowboy who applied for health insurance. The agent routinely asked him, 'Have you ever had any accidents?' The cowboy replied, 'Well no, I've not had any accidents. I was bitten by a rattlesnake once, and a horse did kick me in the ribs. That laid me up for a while, but I haven't had any accidents.' The agent said, 'Wait a minute. I'm confused. A rattlesnake bit you, and a horse kicked you, Weren't those accidents?' 'No, they did that on purpose.

A woman who wants to be the head of her home invites the Devil to take over her family. And the Devil has taken over many homes because the wife has refused to submit to the legitimate, biblical authority of her husband. The result is spiritual sickness and dysfunction.

Never underestimate your role as a father. Remember, Dads, that your children’s view of God will largely be dependent on their view of you.

Your view of God --- How big you think He is - will decide the size of your faith.

An important principle of living by faith is knowing that if God is the cause of whatever issue you are facing, then only God can be the solution.

Unity is not uniformity; unity is oneness of purpose.

What is true outside of us in our actions, decisions, conversations, and choices ought to be true inside our spirit because it is within our spirit that God relates to us.

Church is not for spectators.

Watches have watch makers, paintings have painters, designs have designers, and creation has a creator,

Don’t walk headfirst into sin when you know better. But when you fail, as you most surely will, let God use those failures for His glory.

an orchestra is unified not because all the instruments are the same, but because the different instruments are playing the same song. They are using their unique sounds to create beautiful harmonic textures.

There may be a hundred reasons that a husband is not fulfilling his role as the head of the home. But a wife who rebels against her head is only introducing a new element of spiritual sickness and dysfunction into the family.

A lot of us will be able to show how God’s gifts benefited us. But that’s not the question. The issue with a steward is, how did the King’s business fare under your management? Is the King better off? Was His agenda furthered?

Now when his child falls and scrapes her knee, a loving father is certainly going to scoop her up in his arms, carry her into the house to treat the wound, and hold her close while she cries. That’s what God does for us in our pain. But a wise father will also encourage his child to go back out and try it again, because that’s the only way to learn to ride a bike.

Oftentimes, what is required on our part is taking a step, making the move, doing the thing that God has asked us to do without the accompanying emotions to go along with it. However, as you continue to walk by faith in the direction God has called you, your emotions are soon to follow.

In fact, sometimes God will allow you to experience larger problems in life because He wants to unveil a larger portion of Himself to you. People who want to give up on God simply because life’s scenarios don’t make sense could very well be walking away from a new manifestation of God and His name in their lives.

wrong is because it is the taking of a life. When you take someone’s life, you also take away their right to liberty and their pursuit of happiness. If you take someone’s life, you also take their dream, their future, their family, their career, and their children away from them. All other rights are lost when you take away the right to life.

You don’t have to seek anyone else’s approval for the life God has given you to live. You don’t have to apologize for the strength, fortitude, courage, talent, beauty, or intellect your Creator has given you. Ladies, we all are “God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10).

Full faith is an all-out, no-holds-barred approach to a life punctuated by actions of belief.

Having your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace creates a stability that even Satan cannot undo.

Philippians 4:7: “And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Peace protects you.

This is what separates the men from the boys. Because as a kingdom man, you get to name things. Better yet, as a man under God’s authority, you get to name things

A kingdom woman does hard things, and sometimes having faith based on God’s Word is the simplest yet toughest thing she will ever have to do.

When they wake up in the morning, they don’t say, “Good morning, Lord.” Rather, they say, “Good Lord, it’s morning.

The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is disobedience.

What is the kingdom solution to divisions in the body of Christ along class, cultural, racial, and denominational lines? Be committed to the truth.

We need to make sure we are not analyzing the events in our lives from a secular, human, worldly point of view rather than from a divine, spiritual, godly point of view.

Kingdom women obey God’s Word even when it seems to make no sense. Keep in mind that faith doesn’t always make sense. But it does make miracles.

Forget about Victoria’s Secret. Here’s God’s secret: The only way to satisfy your wife is by creating spiritual oneness.

Is your heavenly Father getting your best, or is He being forced to settle for leftovers? Leftover time. Leftover service. Leftover money.

God is a God of unity, and where there is disunity and division, His Spirit is not free to dwell.

But the true test of a church—and of a man—is not how good it looks, but the kind of impact it makes in the community.

Don’t wait until you become a big shot to do big-shot

God can take your most monstrous failures and turn them into triumphs such as you never could imagine.

A carnal Christian makes his or her decisions based entirely on what can be seen, touched, tasted, smelled, or heard.

Truth cannot be defined by the individuals who have been created because individuals are finite beings with limited knowledge and deceitful hearts (see Jeremiah 17:9).

biblical unity in marriage ought to represent: the distinct lives of two individuals experiencing God’s purpose for each of them in harmony with the other.

A lot of wives are trying too hard to make their marriages work, but they can’t sustain the weight of what they’re doing, and they crash. God says, “I want you to soar on the wind of the Holy Spirit. Position yourself in Me, and let Me glide your marriage into a changed relationship.” When you are doing it God’s way, you don’t have to flap because you can soar.

A kingdom man zeros in on one purpose and one purpose only—advancing the kingdom for the betterment of those within it, which glorifies the King. And he will pursue this at whatever personal cost.

Faith means acting on what God says in spite of what you know, your background, your experience, or even your education. Faith is a recognition of your own finiteness in relation to God’s infiniteness.

When you deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Him, you die while you simultaneously truly live. That is when you experience the reality that “whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25).

a kingdom man may be defined as a man who positions himself and operates according to the comprehensive rule of God over every area of his life. And every area of life should feel the impact of a kingdom man’s presence.

Faith isn’t simply tied to belief. It is tied to an action. Faith is tied to your feet. The power of faith comes when you are willing to give the very thing that you need to someone else so God can give “it” back to you.

Many men have come to view the church for its convenience—help me, bless me, serve me, preach to me, sing to me, pray for me, but don’t expect me to be a vehicle to minister to anyone else or join with you to impact the world.

In order to have faith, you have to know the truth and you have to respond to it. Even having a lot of faith doesn't help you if your faith isn't connected to the truth. Faith is only as valuable as the thing it's connected to.

When your feet hit the floor each morning, do you make your enemy the devil, say, “Oh crap, he’s up”? When you step out your door each day, do heaven, earth, and hell take notice? When you protect the woman under your care, can she do little to resist you? Do your children look to you with confidence? Do other men look to you as someone to emulate? Does your church call on you for strength and leadership? Are you a preserver of culture and a champion of society, one who keeps out evil and ushers in good? Are you a man who is fulfilling your destiny and able to satisfy the woman in your life? More than all of that, though, when God searches for a man to advance His kingdom, does He call your name?

The best way to avoid meaningless repetition is to continue getting to know God. The better you know a person, the more the two of you have to discuss. Whenever you learn something new about our great God, include that in your prayer life.

Biblical love is a choice to do good for another person regardless of what we feel. It is a decision to compassionately and righteously pursue the betterment of another person. This is why you can even love your enemies according to Christ’s command.

A kingdom marriage is defined as “a covenantal union between a man and a woman who commit themselves to function in unison under divine authority in order to replicate God’s image and expand His rule in the world through both their individual and joint callings.

Keep in mind as you face Satan’s tricks of deception that you cannot fight him on your own, with your own methods, or even with your own thoughts. God’s Word—His truth—trumps Satan. You don’t. Satan has constitutional superiority over every man and woman because he is a spirit being.

Tenacious prayer is a lifestyle that produces results. Prayer is more than getting on our knees or clasping our hands while closing our eyes. Prayer is an attitude of operating in conjunction with God. Prayer involves exercising our authority for heavenly intervention in our earthly affairs.

sometimes God will allow you to experience larger problems in life because He wants to unveil a larger portion of Himself to you. People who want to give up on God simply because life’s scenarios don’t make sense could very well be walking away from a new manifestation of God and His name in their lives.

While not seeking to diminish the impact of racism upon a culture, I also want us to recognize that illegitimate or continual cries of racism are self-limiting and self-defeating. They simply foster a victim mentality that reinforces a pathology of dependency. Victimology can be defined as nurturing an unfocused strain of resentment rooted in a defeatist identity through which all realities are filtered, rather than viewing challenges as opportunities to overcome. It is virtually impossible to be a victor and a victim at the same time. In God’s kingdom, victimology negates the foundational theological truths of sovereignty and victory in Christ (Romans 8:28, 37).

See, you can be part of a crowd who gathers at church or even comes together to do a Bible study, but unless you recognize your true humility before the living God and your complete dependence on Him and His Word, you will only be in the vicinity. You will only be part of the Jesus Fan Club. You will go untouched. Nothing will change within you because His power will not be released to you.

The Greek word translated “peace” in the Scripture is eirene. This word is equivalent to the Hebrew word shalom. Essentially, eirene embodies completeness, wholeness, and an inner resting of the soul that does not fluctuate based on outside influences. A person who is at peace is someone who is stable, calm, orderly, and at rest within. The opposite of peace, of course, is inner chaos, anxiety, and worry. This

Too many of us are too comfortable in our “Jesus lifeboat.” Instead of the church preparing its members to reach out to other people who are still in the water and pulling them into the boat, we have settled in for the ride to heaven and are busy coming up with ways to make the trip more comfortable. We go to church each week and worship God because we are saved and safe, forgetting that the lifeboat is not yet full.

We fail to embrace a oneness perspective rooted in kingdom theology, though, unless we, like Joshua, surrender to the truth that God’s kingdom is not here to take sides. God’s kingdom is not black. God’s kingdom is not white. God’s kingdom is not Hispanic. Nor is it Asian, Middle Eastern, or Indian. God did not come to take sides. God came to take over. And until we bow beneath the overarching rules set forth by the Ruler in

When you choose to seek God and His ways like Shamgar, you no longer have to be held hostage to the definitions of this world. You no longer have to be held hostage to an idea that perhaps you are not smart enough, not fast enough, not well-groomed enough, not talented enough, not influential enough, or not powerful enough to achieve greatness. It is irrelevant what people think or say if God says something different. Jesus said, “He who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do.” Jesus is talking about you.

God has determined in His sovereign will where He's going to wind up. But within the context of His will, He has many ways of getting there. He allows you to make choices. Your choices will not determine whether God winds up where He wants to go. He will arrive at His destination, but your choices affect which route He takes. God is going to get there either through you, around you, over you, by you, or in spite of you. When it is all said and done, however, even the route you choose will be the one He sovereignly planned to use in order to achieve His intended purposes.

My deepest appreciation to: Everyone at Scholastic Press, especially Marijka Kostiw, Kristina Albertson, Tracy Mack, and Leslie Budnick. Tracey Adams, my wonderful agent. The members of my critique groups, each of whom possess that rare combination of Charlotte the spider: a true friend and a good writer. My retreat-mates who put me on the right track: Franny Billingsley, Toni Buzzeo, Sarah Lamstein, Dana Walrath, Mary Atkinson, Carol Peacock, and Jackie Davies. With special thanks to Amy Butler Greenfield, Nancy Werlin, Amanda Jenkins, Denise Johns, Melissa Wyatt, Lisa Firke, Lisa Harkrader, Laura Weiss, Mary Pearson, Amy McAuley, and Kristina Cliff-Evans. And to my parents, Earl and Elaine Lord, who gave me wings but always left the porch light on to show the way home.

Men, you are in a war. You are in a spiritual conflict. You are in a battle of epic proportions. Others have lined up to face you, and their only goal is to keep you from advancing God’s kingdom down the field of life. Because of them, the passes thrown to you can’t always be within your grasp. In fact, often because of the nature of the battle, they are thrown high. Yet you have been given all that you need to reach up into heaven and bring victory down to earth. God never said it would be easy. He never said there wouldn’t be missed passes along the way. But what He did say is that the victory is yours if you will reach up and grab it. And later finish this war on a knee. Prayer. It is a kingdom man’s primary weapon of warfare. With it, you will touch heaven and change earth.

God created man out of dust from the ground. At a basic level, the Creator picked up some dirt and threw Adam together. The Hebrew word for God forming man is yatsar,[11] which means “to form, as a potter.” A pot usually has but one function. Yet when God made a woman, He “made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man” (Genesis 2:22). He created her with His own hands. He took His time crafting and molding her into multifaceted brilliance. The Hebrew word used for making woman is banah, meaning to “build, as a house, a temple, a city, an altar.”[12] The complexity implied by the term banah is worth noting. God has given women a diverse makeup that enables them to carry out multiple functions well. Adam may be considered Human Prototype 1.0, while Eve was Human Prototype 2.0. Of high importance, though, is that Eve was fashioned laterally with Adam’s rib. It was not a top-down formation of dominance or a bottom-up formation of subservience. Rather, Eve was an equally esteemed member of the human race. After all, God spoke of the decision for their creation as one decision before we were ever even introduced to the process of their creation. The very first time we read about both Eve and Adam is when we read of the mandate of rulership given to both of them equally. We are introduced to both genders together, simultaneously. This comes in the first chapter of the Bible: Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26–27) Both men and women have been created equally in the image of God. While within that equality lie distinct and different roles (we will look at that in chapter 10), there is no difference in equality of being, value, or dignity between the genders. Both bear the responsibility of honoring the image in which they have been made. A woman made in the image of God should never settle for being treated as anything less than an image-bearer of the one true King. As Abraham Lincoln said, “Nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent in the world to be trodden on.”[13] Just as men, women were created to rule.

Remember, a blessing is not only what God does for you but also what He is free to do through you. God told Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:3 NIV). This is why Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). When God knows He can flow through you horizontally, His blessings will freely flow to you vertically. But the moment God sees that it’s only about you, that His blessings are going to stop with you and not flow through you to someone else, He is not as interested in continuing the flow of His blessings to you. He wants followers who are conduits, not cul-de-sacs.

Aproximadamente 70 por ciento de todos los presos proviene de hogares sin padre.[9] Alrededor de 80 por ciento de los violadores con problemas de ira viene de hogares sin padre.[10] Las estadísticas sobre la falta del padre fuera de la población carcelaria son igual de alarmantes. El 71 por ciento de estudiantes que abandonan la secundaria procede de hogares donde falta el padre; el 63 por ciento de los suicidios de adolescentes ocurre en hogares donde el padre es un abusador o está ausente.[11] En las zonas residenciales y suburbios de la ciudad, muchos padres han «desaparecido» ya sea por medio del divorcio, del abandono o de la indulgencia excesiva. Muchos padres ponen su carrera por encima de la familia, o aman más el campo de golf que a sus propios hijos.

Thus marriage, like the Trinity, is a hierarchical partnership. While all parties are equal in value, essence, and significance, there is a distinction in function (hierarchy) in order to fulfill God’s kingdom agenda in history.

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El hombre que no está bajo el liderazgo y la guía de la iglesia local no está viviendo bajo el liderazgo de Cristo, porque la iglesia es el cuerpo y la plenitud de Cristo.

La iglesia también tiene que servir como el lugar donde aquellas personas que hayan sido entrenadas en el estudio de la Palabra de Dios estén a disposición para contestar las preguntas que los hombres puedan tener en su búsqueda de enseñar y discipular a los miembros de su familia. No obstante, muy a menudo pareciera que son las mujeres las que plantean las preguntas a los pastores y a los líderes de la iglesia. Señores, este es su trabajo. Si su esposa o sus hijos tienen una pregunta, es su responsabilidad encontrar y brindarles la respuesta. Si su esposa menciona más el nombre de su pastor que el suyo durante la semana, es porque usted no está cumpliendo con su rol de cabeza espiritual en su hogar. Usted es el pastor de su esposa.

Many believers today don’t realize that even though we received the Holy Spirit when we trusted in Christ for salvation from our sins, the ongoing dwelling of the Holy Spirit’s presence is something we need to seek on a regular basis. Just as driving your car is difficult if it’s running on fumes, living the victorious Christian life is impossible without the flame of the Spirit burning bright.

God wants the church to be a community where real people in real relationships are meeting real needs in real ways. God did not create the church simply as a classroom where you get instruction or as a theater where you come to watch a performance.

Believing in Jesus didn’t get the Christians hung or tossed to the lions for sport. Believing in Jesus as the rightful ruler and lord did. There’s a difference.

When you got saved, God deposited deep down within you all of the righteousness that belongs to Jesus Christ. But you can't benefit unless you are willing to dig down deep with the shovel of truth so that God will release a brand-new you surrounded by the secure protection of a breastplate of His righteousness.